Jonathan Lundberg

Gen Con has announced that they have sold out of 4 day badges for Gen Con 50 slated to occur from August 17-20 at the Indiana Convention Center. This is the first time that 4 day badges have sold out for Gen Con. Trade day badges which are a specialty type of badge have routinely sold out the past few years. Along with this sellout Gen Con has forewarned that they will likely sell out of single day badges as well. This year also marks the first time that badges will not be available for purchase at all onsite.

Over the past few years Gen Con has seen immense growth. Though attendance did remain fairly flat last year. With the 50th anniversary celebration, record numbers of exhibitors, and a further increase in space utilization at Lucas Oil Stadium it appears that this will be the largest iteration of the convention yet.

The convention has stated that for those in the Indianapolis community the $45 dollar Family Fun Day wrist bands which will get a family 4 into the show on Sunday August 20 might be their best option at this point.

At the time of printing it appears that single day badges are sold out on Sunday already. This is indicative that they are not joking about single day badges selling out.

Bringing on the third installment in the Alliances cycle of Star Wars: The Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games. Desperate Circumstances brings in the opportunity for players to now recruit from the fringes of the galaxy as opposed to the traditional sources of fighters for the rebels and imperials. Featuring five different objective sets this addition to the cycle will provide some interesting variety. With his set focusing heavily on the use of multiple affiliations and the cards to make having those affiliations concurrently this will bring some new to the game that has not necessarily been available previously.

This set is anticipated to hit shelves in Fall 2017. For more details you can see the blog post by FFG announcing it in more detail here.

Spielbox has announced the acquisition of Eggertspiele by Plan B Games Europe GmbH. As part of the acquisition Peter Eggert has stated that he will remain on with company for 3 years doing game development. Word on the continuation of strategic partnerships has not been released with the news of the acquisition.

Plan B Games is the company behind Origins Game Fair hit Century: Spice Road. It was formed by Sophie Gravel who was the founder of Filosofia Editions. After the acquisition of F2Z entertainment by Asmodee North America she spun off Plan B with a number of F2Z’s publishing house Z-Man Games design partners like Emerson Matsuuchi, Matt Leacock, and Anita Landgraf.

Eggertspiele is the publisher behind games like Coal Baron, Animals on Board, Great Western Trail, and many others. Historically they have had strategic partnerships with Gigamic (french language editions) and Stronghold Games (english language editions).

The Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design presented the Origins Awards Saturday June 17th at the annual awards show held at the GAMA hosted convention Origins in Columbus, OH. As part of this winners were announced in seven categories along with a fan favorite award in each category as well.

We would like to extend congratulations to all award winners.

Game of the Year

Scythe – Stonemeier Games

Board Game of the Year

Scythe – Stonemeier Games

Family Game of the Year

Happy Salmon – North Star Games

RPG of the Year

No Thank You, Evil! – Monte Cooke Games

Best Collectible of the Year

Pokemon XY11 Steam Siege Booster – The Pokemon Co.

Best Accessory of the Year

Blood Rage Organizer – Broken Token

Card Game of the Year

Mystic Vale – AEG

North Star Games announced at Origins Game Fair the newest iteration of their popular line of Wits and Wagers games. This version named Wits and Wagers Vegas will be hitting Kickstarter on Saturday August 18th and will be provide two options for gamers to be able to utilize the new and improved game. On one side of the neoprene game mat will be the following board allowing players to hedge their bets but also make more distinctive bets on an individuals answer sight unseen. Additionally included with the game will be strips that will allow the players to cover up spaces on the board for 5 and 6 player games. This should allow for added variability.

This should be available as a standard edition with the mat and covering strips included or as an upgrade pack for those who already have Wits and Wagers Party Edition.

Wil Wheaton is back with Season 4 of his hit show Tabletop brought to you by Geek & Sundry. In this season guests like Seth Green, Felicia Day, Jonathan Coulton, Matt Mercer, and many others will be showing up.

They have announced some of the games that will be showing up Season 4.

The first two episodes will be available on youtube today 11/2 (Lanterns: The Harvest Festival) & 11/9 (Champions of Midgard). After that they will be available via Alpha for early access and will drop on youtube biweekly starting on 1/30/17.

Congratulations to Mickey K, this week’s winner of a $10.00 gift certificate to Cool Stuff Inc. Just prior to posting this announcement, Mickey was emailed instructions on how to claim his certificate.

Thank you to everyone that’s subscribed to our news (each week we’ll award a $10 CSI gift certificate to a random subscriber)! We hope that you’re enjoying the content provided and that it’s been informative.

We’d also like to express our gratitude towards Cool Stuff Inc for providing the gift certificates! We’ve given away hundreds of dollars so far! You can visit Cool Stuff’s web site here.

Dan Yarrington proprietor of Myriad Games and Game Salute is being sued by his former business partners Zev Shlasinger and Paul Gerardi. At the heart of the lawsuit is a contention by the plaintiffs that Mr Yarrington & Myriad Games committed fraud in the initial inducement to create the partnership ZaP’D Games LLC and breach of contract during the management of the business and during its dissolution.

The winners of the prestigious Spiel Des Jahres and Kennerspiel Des Jahres have been announced.

Codenames by designer Vlaada Chvatil published by Czech Games Editions won the Spiel Des Jahres (German for Game of the Year). This team party game has seen great success thus far having one a number of Dice Tower Awards as well. Having already picked up placement in Target stores this award can only aid in its uptake with the non-hobby gaming public. This win was not overly surprising as a result of the overwhelming popularity seen by the aforementioned items.

Isle of Skye: From Chieftan to King by designers Andreas Pelikan and Alexander Pfister Published by Mayfair Games/Lookout Games won the Kennerspiel Des Jahres (German for Connoisseur Game of the Year). This game has received critical acclaim from many within the gaming community. This win was more surprising as a result of the competition it received from both Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 and T.I.M.E. Stories.

For more information you can visit the Spiel Des Jahres awards pages for Codenames here and Isle of Skye here.